It appears that the Shops at Dakota Crossing is becoming a reality after a long wait. The 43 acres that will mak
e up the Shops, to be located less than a 1/2 mile from Bladensburg Road NE in the Fort Lincoln neighborhood, will have access from New York Avenue/Route 50 and South Dakota Avenue NE. According to the Fort Lincoln New Town Corporation, the general contractor, Harvey Cleary Builders, plans to start clearing and grading the property in the spring of 2011 and the stores are to open in the summer of 2012.
The stores are the ones we long thought would go there. There will be a 154,000 SF Costco; 136,000 SF Target; 55,000 SF Shoppers; 28,000 SF Marshalls; and the remaining 57,000 SF will be small shops, banks, and restaurants. In addition to providing to stating that they will provide 1,200 full time, permanent jobs, they also claim that the big box anchors will have LEED certifications.
Although this is not the redevelopment of Rhode Island Ave NE, I think it plays a significant part in this area’s revitalization which will have a positive effect on all of us along RIA. With the development of the RIA Metro station area on one end and this development on the other end, all we have to do now is fill in the middle.
***NOTE: Thank you to one of our favorite readers and commentators of Rhode Island Insider, Roy, for providing the details for this post.
rhodeislandavene.com 
to be blunt, if you’re going to call something that is paving over green space and causing untold amount of run-off into the anacostia, and generating enormous numbers of carbon-spewing automobile trips, “green” because it’s “LEED certified,” then LEED certification is the biggest joke in the universe.
This development is going to be a DISASTER, the anti-thesis of green. It will feature 1,800 , yes one thousand, eight hundred unstructured parking spaces and be almost totally inaccessible via public transit. I don’t know if the amount of automobile traffic generated city-wide as folks get to and from this development, not to mention the dire environmental aspects can even be quantified. The city leaders should be ashamed of themselves.
I’m all about saving the environment, but I am more about increasing my property value…and if it takes paving over a patch of grass to turn this part of NE into a community where people would actually want to live, so be it. There is no such thing as perfect development, but at least something is finally being done up here.
On another note, i just want to put an observation out there. While NW DC is flourishing, NE has been overlooked for far too long. Hopefully this development will not go the way of all the other retail developments in NE and have people ghetto them up within a year of opening. It’s disgusting the way people whine about not having the same amenities as other areas in DC, and then turn them to crap when they finally do open here. Developers will not open businesses in areas where people don’t take care of the community. (the Safeway in Hechinger Plaza is a case in point…nice when it opened…now a filthy, third-world looking mess). Sorry about this little rant, but I think it is worth mentioning. I also realize that the people on this blog are probably no the ones contributing to this mess, but it is up to us to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.
I think it’s unrealistic to expect transit oriented development in a part of the city with zero transit. Be realistic.
This is the one part of the city that supports this kind of development. Bladensburg, NY Ave, SD Ave, are all major roads.
As a nearby resident, I will look forward to shopping there, and that will mean a shorter car trip versus a long car trip to VA or MD. Therefore the environmental impact is positive.
Of course, if we settle for the simplest, easiest development, or the lowest common denominator, we’d have no transit-oriented development, or transit at all, for that matter.
Aim for better. We deserve at least that much.
Well the first step then is to create a whole new metro
line to serve this area then. But that will never happen because
the real estate values in this area are about zero. This project is
a first step in a process. Once the area becomes more of a
destination for something besides used car lots and empty
warehouses, the value of the land will rise. Only then will it be
feasible to consider transit. Once transit is built, this
development can be razed and replaced with something better. We
have to keep a long term vision for this area. It’s unrealistic to
expect it to go from nothing to perfect smart growth oriented
development overnight.